INF Treaty

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed in Washington on 8 December 1987 by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, entering into force on 1 June 1988. It was the first arms-control agreement to abolish an entire category of nuclear weapons rather than merely cap numbers. The treaty banned the possession, production, and flight-testing of all ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres — the "intermediate" (1,000–5,500 km) and "shorter" (500–1,000 km) bands. It was a direct response to the "Euromissile crisis" triggered by the Soviet deployment of SS-20 Saber missiles and NATO's countervailing 1979 "dual-track decision" to deploy Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles in Western Europe while pursuing negotiations.

The treaty's enduring significance lay in its verification regime, then the most intrusive in arms-control history. It required the destruction of 2,692 missiles by 1991 — 846 American and 1,846 Soviet systems — verified through on-site inspections, including continuous portal monitoring at production facilities such as Votkinsk in the USSR and Magna, Utah in the US. The accord embodied Reagan's maxim "trust, but verify" (a Russian proverb, doveryai, no proveryai). Crucially, the INF Treaty covered only land-based systems, leaving sea- and air-launched intermediate missiles untouched, and its bilateral character meant it never constrained third parties such as China, whose growing missile arsenal later became a key American grievance.

The treaty unravelled in the 2010s. The United States, beginning under the Obama administration in 2014 and formally under President Donald Trump, accused Russia of deploying the 9M729 (SSC-8) ground-launched cruise missile in violation of the range limits; Russia denied the charge and counter-accused the US of treaty-inconsistent Aegis Ashore launchers and armed drones. On 2 August 2019 the United States formally withdrew after a six-month notice period, and Russia declared the treaty defunct the same day. As of 2026 no successor agreement constrains intermediate-range missiles; the collapse, alongside the 2002 ABM Treaty withdrawal, has fuelled concern over a renewed missile race in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, where the US has begun fielding systems such as the Typhon launcher.

For competitive examinations the INF Treaty is a high-frequency topic in International Relations and World History papers (UPSC GS Paper II and the optional/world-history syllabus, FSOT, CSS Current Affairs). Examiners typically test the signing year (1987), the principals (Reagan and Gorbachev), the range parameters (500–5,500 km), and the 2019 US withdrawal with the cited Russian violation (9M729). A favoured analytical angle asks candidates to situate the treaty within the broader Cold War détente-to-disarmament arc — linking it to SALT, START, and the ABM Treaty — and to assess why its bilateral framework left it vulnerable to obsolescence in a multipolar missile environment dominated by an unbound China.